Rates from Bankrate.com

Mortgage

Credit Cards

Auto

The Terrible Truth About Income Inequality: Opinion

Written by: Peter Morici05/14/14 - 7:00 AM EDT

Tickers in this article:
CMCSA TWC

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Economic inequality has emerged as the central political challenge of the 21st Century. Left wing academics and politicians are quick with quack remedies -- higher taxes on the wealthy that I believe will only send more investment abroad and smother growth.

For most Americans, good-paying jobs are scarce, and many feel powerless to improve their lot. Yet, for those at the very top of business and in a few charmed professions, things have never been better.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (I) recently asked Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, "Are we still a capitalist democracy, or have we gone over into an oligarchic form of society, in which incredible economic and political power now rests with the billionaire class?"

Yellen deflected, saying she preferred not to assign labels, but Sanders struck a nerve.

Russia's oligarchy has two salient characteristics. The government uses its power to regulate markets to concentrate wealth in the hands of an influential few, while most of its citizens stay poor by western standards.

In recent decades, the federal government has enabled monopolization in many industries -- for example, in cable TV and high-speed Internet, banking and health care -- by failing to use its antitrust and regulatory powers to curb abusive practices.

Comcast enjoys monopoly access to most homes it services. Each year, it raises rates for cable TV bundled with high-speed Internet faster than the rate of inflation, because federal policies prohibit local governments from regulating cable prices as those do for electric and water utilities.

Its fee structure discourages subscribers from purchasing only high-speed Internet and independently obtaining entertainment content over the Net. Now Comcast proposes to acquire Time Warner Cable and establish a virtual national monopoly, giving it huge bargaining leverage with content providers, such as ESPN,Turner and Fox, even though it already owns NBC.

Comcast is transforming a public utility into an international media giant on the backs of overtaxed subscribers. Yet federal regulators will likely approve its acquisition of Comcast, because it has "close ties" with the Obama White House, in my opinion.